


What the wind didn't take

by Running_on_a_rake (s_Sparrow_s)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU Wizard Bill, Fantasy, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24537562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_Sparrow_s/pseuds/Running_on_a_rake
Summary: The sorcerer suddenly became possessed by evil.
Relationships: Bill Cipher & Dipper Pines, Bill Cipher/Dipper Pines
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	What the wind didn't take

The house is isolated, closer to the forest. They say a wizard likes to be alone, but who would tolerate a cursed one within a step of their own porch?  
The door opens noiselessly, but the floorboards creak under his feet, as if welcoming a guest who is standing excitedly on the threshold. Dipper looks around, trying to catch a glimpse of every detail of the situation — not to miss anything important when it comes to descriptions.  
The house is spacious and untidy. The cobwebs swirl in the corner, the roof leaks — the heavy and stifling smell of burning herbs is mixed with a putrid smell that inevitably makes you feel sick. A stack of books is piled right next to the door, and a bone amulet hangs from the ceiling, which Dipper can't examine more closely — his vision has long since lost its sharpness from frequent reading in the dim light of candles. He knows that things should not be touched in the sorcerer's house without permission, but he can't help being curious and reaches cautiously for the talisman.  
— You'll lose your arm, " comes a voice, lazy and mocking. It sounds from somewhere in the back rooms, and Dipper, startled, timidly moves away.

He follows the voice, barely able to contain his excitement. He knows that his request is impertinent, and the sorcerer is known to have a bad temper. Requests something fulfills, there is no dispute — but the payment is always more than the one who asks is ready to give. That's why the Holy father forbade going to the sorcerer, even though he says in his sermons that there can be no witchcraft among the righteous. He says the crank is just a herbalist who lost his mind as a punishment for not living according to God's commandments. Parishioners nod and cluck their tongues in disapproval — but they still come for help in times of need.  
The wizard sits at the table with his head bowed. He wore his long hair in a heavy, thick braid that he slung over his shoulder. He is tall and slender, dressed all in black; in front of him on the table is scattered a whole scattering of small debris — stones, dried flowers, a girl's hairpin, shards of glass. He doesn't look up at dipper, but he smiles out of the corner of his mouth, and when Dipper gets closer, he puts a single Tarot card face up in the center of the table.

— What are you doing — does the cat got your tongue? the wizard grins. "Tell me what you want." Money? Love? Run away to the big city or get so much luck that it drags your pockets?

Dipper doesn't need love or money. Their small village, lost among the dense forests, is dearer to him than all the cities in the world, and the happiness purchased is not worth a copper coin next to the happiness purchased.  
Dipper excitedly clutches her favorite diary to her chest and takes a step forward.

"Take me as an apprentice," she blurts out hastily, then pales as the wizard raises his head and looks him in the eye.

And then he laughs.

Dipper is a little dizzy from the smell of incense, herbs, and rotting log. The wizard is unbearably handsome, not at all like the men here. They say that he lives in the world for the fourth century, but his skin is smooth, and his eyes are clear. Dipper had never seen such white hair before, and no one had ever seen such unusual transparent eyes.

— Don't you know?" The wizard grins, and dipper involuntarily takes a step back as He rises from the table. — And your request will be expensive, Oh, so expensive." They already say that I offer dishonest deals.

"I don't think there are any dishonest deals," Dipper whispers back. The wizard comes closer, and involuntarily, whether from embarrassment or fear, he is thrown into a fever. — There are poorly negotiated terms.

The wizard laughs again. His gloved hand reaches out to dipper and removes a lock of hair from His forehead. He even leans closer to the young man to get a better look at his birthmark, which he hides behind his long bangs.

"Not a stupid idea," the wizard smiles. — You are a star-marked man, and you could be a good student. However, to be honest, I am somewhat surprised — this is the first time someone has come to me with such a request.

"What do you mean, marked?"

— It means that you will be useful to me."

He looks at dipper, and dipper thinks the wizard can see right through Him. His piercing gaze is more disconcerting than ever, as if he were standing there fully uncovered, without clothes, but it also strangely gives courage. Dipper raises her chin stubbornly, her fingers white-clenched on the diary: he had come to be seen. To hear, at last, the unseen and unheard before. To recognize and understand the passion for knowledge, which takes possession of him more than other passions. Whether the sorcerer is a herbalist, whether the sorcerer is a charlatan, or whether his soul is really given to the devil: the sorcerer knows more than other people and can teach him many things that the parish teachers do not know. Which are not in the books that my sister sometimes sends from the city. For which it is not a pity to give anything, no matter what you ask.  
"You know how to treat diseases that a healer can't handle," Dipper says quietly, but very firmly. — You can guess the future, and you can look into the past. Even if I can never do the same, I want to know how you do things like this. I want to follow you and learn all this. I want to leave behind research that will expand the boundaries of knowledge. We'll agree on a price, but if you refuse me, you'd better put the most brutal of your death curses on me right away, because I won't give up — I'll come to you every day, time after time…

Long black-gloved fingers wrap around his chin and pull him up. Dipper flinches — seeing something hard and angry in the wizard's expression. Even if it is immediately hidden behind a smile, it remains a shadow in the amused gaze.

— There's a map on the table, " the wizard says, and his eyes seem to warm slightly. "Take it and tell me what you see."

Removing his hand, he does not turn to Dipper, who obediently follows the instructions. On the map, he sees an angel trumpeting; the mournfully hunched people below him are clasping their hands in a gesture of prayer, but their pleas hardly reach the ears of the angel, whose appearance is severe and dispassionate.

Dipper replies:  
\- Court.

The wizard looks back at him, grinning.

"Oh," he says, and his voice shudders with rage. — Well, let it be as it should be. I will grant your request, since you so desire it. The book in your hands-for your own notes?

"I write down everything important that I learn," Dipper nods, happy and still not quite believing his own luck. And what do you want in return?

The sorcerer's transparent eyes darken, as if an impenetrable shadow covers his face.

— You will know when to return here, " he says, after a pause. "As for my price: write about me, apprentice. Write without missing a line or a word — let this story never end.

***  
The sorcerer is burned every other day, at dawn. The sky is still gray, and there is a damp haze coming from the forest — Dipper follows the haze, tired and sleepy after a sleepless night under the stars, the position of which he sketched as he lay in the grass in a forest clearing — and looks anxiously into the distance. At this early hour, the village is usually asleep, and the strange activity seems a bad sign. Dipper sees several men dragging someone, bound, away from the houses. Realizing who it is, he gasps in horror and breaks into a run.

But what can he do?

The sorcerer is tied tightly to a pole that is placed in a pile of firewood, and his heavy scythe is cut off. The sorcerer shows the priest his bloody teeth in a rage, and the priest turns pale and tightens his grip on the book.  
The list of sins is long: the devil cured a terminally ill child, but took his mother and father, the devil found an enviable bride for a young man who was bad-looking, and burned their house, buried them alive under a burning log. The devil destroyed all the crops and ruined the man who asked for a long life, the devil sent infected rats to the village, the devil took possession of wild animals in the forest, the devil took the soul of everyone who came for a deal…

"We have dug up the graves of the unfortunate ones who died by your will, God forgive us," the priest says, and Dipper looks at the wizard in despair — look at me, look at me, tell me what to do to stop this. — And we saw that all these dead people were eaten to the bone by decomposition, as if their bodies were at least a hundred years old!

The wizard laughs and spits blood in his face.

— So what?" he laughs. — They sold their own bodies and souls. I only take what is rightfully mine. Burn me, father, and I will take my price for it!

When the fire on the dry wood reaches his body, he chokes with ecstatic, terrible laughter. The scythe, cut off and lying at his feet, burns, and the black robe flares up. He laughs and howls like a madman, bursting out of his bonds. His skin turns black and bursts, and his cry comes out as a rasp from his burned throat.  
The wizard — William, God save his soul-takes so long to die, it's as if the fire can't eat him at all. In his wide-open eyes, Dipper sees the dancing tongues of hungry flames until the last moment.

The dawn fog smells of rot and burnt herbs.

The ashes smell bitter and acrid, even when they are sprinkled with earth. A sorcerer is not buried, much honor — the charred bones that remain of the body are thrown at the forest to be torn apart by animals.  
At night, Dipper secretly collects the bones in a bag and buries them under the porch of an old house that stands empty on the outskirts. They'll probably be here soon, when the horror of the cursed one's dying cry is dispelled. They will steal everything they find, plunder and destroy a legacy that has no price.  
The house looks out of blind Windows, and the sight of it reminds Dipper of how not long ago a sorcerer who knows a lot and promises him impossible knowledge, laughed, looking into his eyes.  
Dipper enters the silent house — the floorboards no longer creaking under his feet. He carefully collects all the books and records that he can find, takes the amulet that hangs over the door (the eye, cut from an old yellowed bone, looks warm and alive in the palm of his hand), without hesitation, puts dried herbs in bags. Finally, he puts in his pocket the stones that are scattered on the table, and looks at the map, crumpled in anger: the angel of judgment is still stern and fierce, but the people beneath him no longer offer their prayers, but weep in the flames of hell.

***  
The priest dies first. When dipper finds out about This, he swallows a nervous laugh — why didn't God help him?

The priest is buried in a closed coffin, because the sight of his body, broken and rotten to the bone, is too terrible. Dipper knows this because he pays the undertakers and spends the whole night at the dead body, drawing its fear-distorted features.

He gradually moves into a house that the locals avoid. At first they tried to plunder it, but found nothing; they tried to burn it, but the fire did not take the rotten wood.   
The house is blown by all the winds and whispers different voices from the dark rooms. Tales of the past, thoughts of the future-Dipper writes in a diary everything he hears. One night, the bed in the wizard's bedroom is pushed through, as if someone is sitting next to it, and the smell of burning poison fills your nose. It is impossible to breathe, and Dipper throws himself up in a half-sleep, but the intruder laughs in his ear, icy fingers entwine in his hair, pulling at them — and Dipper sees his burned empty eye sockets-a moment before dawn.

At first, no one knows that he lives here — but it can't be hidden for too long. But the cemetery is growing-two, five, ten new tombstones, and the village is freezing cold, blown by all the winds. The village is rotting. Rotting crops, rotting livestock.

Dipper comes to the next funeral, and it is funny to tears, because they shy away from him-they are afraid to look at him, they are afraid to stand close.  
The wizard's books are full of fairy tales. They talk about the Last judgment and about God being devoured by fire — and about the devil devouring him. They talk about the young man with the star mark that keeps all the stories, they talk about the end of the world, they talk about the price of human weaknesses. They say so much that life is not enough to know them completely. Dipper rewrites every fairy tale-the diary gets thicker, and it doesn't end with pages.

His reflection in the mirror looks behind him with transparent eyes. Laughs — the local cemetery does not have enough space for new graves.

Dipper clutches the diary to her chest and touches the face of the person looking out of the mirror with the tips of her fingers. It's his face, but it doesn't belong to him. The wind rises outside the Windows — one day it will level the village to the ground, one day it will destroy all the past, and there will only be stories to remember.  
Dipper continues to write about what he witnessed. He writes about what he saw in his dreams — that the stars, gradually flowing to the horizon, sing to him, and that whispers in the ear of a man who leans over his bed at night and feverish heat burns his cheeks.

The wind howls terribly outside the Windows — it takes everything and does not touch only him.

***

The house stands on the edge of the woods. They say that the Chronicler loves solitude, and who would dare to come closer to him, if around him-a cemetery, and howling hungry winds, and at night among the trees, dead fires blaze, on which someone sobs ecstatically?

No one dares. The legends still live.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope for your hits.


End file.
